On most days, Jake could be found in the same spot around the same time, doing many of the same things. His seat was third from the end of the bar at Chevy’s Bar and Restaurant in Novinger. His drink was Miller High Life. And he always requested the biggest ash tray in the joint to be on the countertop before him.

Ask him how he was doing and he responded the same way each time. “To hell with it.” It wasn’t an angry response. No, for Jake, that was status quo.

Saturday, Jan. 5, was like most days. Jake took a cab from his residence at Kirksville’s Village 76 to see his friends at the bar in Novinger and in the early evening, like the other days, he took a cab ride back to his residence.

It was the last time Jake made that trip. Sometime that Sunday, the man referred to as a quiet, decent old man by those who knew him best, was brutally murdered and then dismembered in the apartments on Valley Forge Drive in Kirksville.

The crime itself so horrific, the people who were likely as close to family as Jake had stop mid-sentence when they begin talking about it. They look into the distance, seeming to search for a sensible explanation to it all.

None comes, so they resume with memories about the man they knew both so little and so much about.

“He sure as hell didn’t deserve what he got,” said Ronnie Cuculich, of Novinger.

“It’s going to be different without him being around here,” said Julie Conner, who works at Chevy’s.

What Jake did before he came to northeast Missouri is something of a mystery to the people with whom he spent so much of his time. Unknown to them, too, is whether “Jake” was a given or nickname, or even the man’s real last name, as multiple people interviewed said they believed he went by at least two names.

As it turns out, the victim’s real name is Willis Edward Meredith, though he also went by the name Jake Steadman. The latter was apparently the name he’d given to his friends in Novinger.

Jake was something of a storyteller, they say, and he’d talked about a great many things. Perhaps he was an employee at a bread company. Maybe he owned some bars. He could have even been a Kansas Highway Patrol officer.

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“Jake was the kind of guy who had a lot of stories to tell,” said John McFarland, of Novinger. “How many are actually true, who knows?”

One of Jake’s favorites involved his playing guitar with Willie Nelson.

“It was the same story every time. The details never varied,” said Gail Greathouse, who manages Chevy’s. “Maybe it was true. Who knows?”

In the mid-1970s the city of Novinger was having a sewer system built. The company handling the work was run out of Olathe, Kan., and according to Lisa Williams, whose uncle was leading the work, Jake was part of the construction crew.

Jake ended up relocating to Novinger and taking residence in a small home. A wizard in woodworking, he took a job with Junior Pickett and did construction and woodwork around the town.

He made jewelry boxes and sold them with pride to local residents for about $5. People bought them whether they needed them or not, Greathouse said.

Cuculich and his wife, Bonnie, said Jake built the staircase in their home. Every time he saw Bonnie, she said with a smile, he greeted her the same.

“He always just said, ‘Hi, pretty lady,’” she said. “He was very respectful.”

How he became so adept at woodworking, no one seemed to know, but when Chevy’s was getting set to open around 2000 it was Jake who was hired to build the front of the bar and numerous other fixtures. He also knew of McFarland’s collection of classic model cars and suggested he build some special shelves so they could be properly displayed.

More than a dozen years later, the cars rest on the same pieces, each featuring the automobile’s name carved along the base.

In the early days of Chevy’s, Jake would drive his riding lawnmower to and from his home and the bar. Sometimes on his way home, Greathouse said, he’d swing through the alley next to the bar to save Gail from trying to keep the weeds at bay.

When Pickett closed up shop, Jake had little else to turn to, Greathouse said. He continued his daily trips to and from the bar up until one winter a few years ago, when she and McFarland noticed they hadn’t seen him in a few days.

Jake was still living in the same house in Novinger, but no longer had electricity or running water. They’d given him empty beer boxes to burn, but this winter was a harsh one, Greathouse said, and they feared the worst when they knocked on the door and heard no reply.

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McFarland said he inched the door open and moved inside. Within a small room was a cot on the floor. Jake was on top, with blankets and jackets pulled up over his face. McFarland shook Jake’s shoulder and the man mumbled a few words. He was OK, but the situation was far from it.

“You could see your breath in there,” Greathouse said.

McFarland made arrangements for a load of firewood to be delivered to Jake’s home. Jake said he didn’t need it, that the gesture wasn’t necessary, but Greathouse said they knew better.

“The man never asked for anything,” she said. “If we’d have let him go, he would have frozen to death.”

A few years later the land on which Jake’s home sat was sold. Forced to leave, and possibly bitter about how things unfolded, he moved to Village 76 with McFarland’s help. Now drawing Social Security, his friends thought it would be for the best, having a nice place to live, with heat, running water and a solid roof over his head.

“It nearly brought him to tears,” Greathouse said. “That was tough on him.”

He may have moved to Kirksville, but his true home remained in Novinger at Chevy’s.

“He just felt at home when he came here,” Greathouse said. “We were the only family he had.”

That family looked out for him in different ways. Greathouse said Chevy’s has a particular group of regulars she’d describe as “rough and tumble” who will be happy to have a war of words with anyone without things becoming physical.

“If you said anything bad about Jake, though, those guys would be all over you,” she said.

Not too long ago Jake’s white beard had grown out of control, reaching beyond his waistline.

A local cosmetology student offered to give his beard a trim, and Jake consented.

“He looked so much better after that,” Greathouse said. “And he felt better, too. I’d say, ‘Jake, don’t you feel better,’ and he’s say, ‘Yes, I do.’ He was walking around kind of proud after that. People were always complimenting him, telling him how much better he looked.”

That family had also been growing concerned. In recent weeks, Jake had complained one of his neighbors had been coming into his apartment, stealing money and cigarettes.

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Greathouse said she encouraged Jake to inform the Kirksville Housing Authority or law enforcement, but he simply shook his head, not wanting to start trouble.

Whether that man was Paul R. Potter, who stands accused of murdering Willis Edward “Jake” Meredith, is not known. Jake never said the person’s name, nor did anyone recall him mentioning any kind of relationship with his alleged killer.

Last Saturday, in Jake’s final visit to Chevy’s, he handed McFarland $100. McFarland had loaned him $80, as he’d done several times before when Jake was running short on money toward the end of a month. As soon as his Social Security check came through, though, Jake was back, ready to pay with interest, despite protests that wasn’t necessary.

“I honestly felt sorry for him,” McFarland said. “I knew there wasn’t anyone around to do anything for him.”

Now, his seat rests empty, though Chevy’s remains filled with his presence; the woodwork along the walls, the bar, and Jake’s seat, third from the end.

In some ways, these friends knew so little about him, while in others they were like brothers and sisters, and they miss him as one of their own.